*UPDATE* Another Perpetual Motion Machine? MIT Professor Stumped....

[Trogdor91]

A fellow at work was talking about something similar to this the other day. Not sure if it was the same or not but it also used magnets etc and claimed that he himself built one out of an alternator. If its real thats awesome, and if its not, well nothing will change. I just can't stop thinking that if he can find out how to do this from directions on the internets, why hasn't someone shown that they actually sold electricity back to the electric company? Surely someone has tried this on a grander scale. My personal opinion, if it was legit, something major would have already happened with it already.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: destrekor
I've always thought magnetic fields will eventually be a great source of energy, just getting over the magnetic friction would be the biggest hurdle. Magnetic fields contain a lot of potential energy, especially that friction generated by them...
but magnets also have the innate ability to repel. So, if we can find a way to overcome apparent friction (needed: a constant energy to propel some magnets), and capture the energy available in the magnetic fields... and if one can somehow capture enough energy then it could power itself and leave a little trickle of extra energy, meaning a large enough scale amped up in speed could produce a good amount of energy that is perceived as free.

free energy though? Well, isn't it safe to say magnetic fields are a great source of potential energy, when imagining magnetic friction and other things (I understand the concepts, but don't know the details in these fields.. I'm only working towards a BA after all 😛). I'm not too sure about magnetization and demagnetization.. but can't magnets be re-magnetized? If not... wouldn't this be similar to nuclear then, if the first statement of this paragraph holds true? Lots of potential energy waiting to be captured... but depletes over time. But aren't magnets easy to produce? I'm sure a little payment into such energy creation won't be so bad. Magnets aren't terribly expensive, are they? And if they can help us create energy, like with nuclear materials... than that ain't so bad.

And worst thing to come of this discovery could very well be a way to create a more efficient and viable all-electric car motor.

Here's to hoping this is true. Stumping an MIT professor with such a device just makes it all the better. 🙂 And yes, due to his personal history and struggles.. I'm less likely to call shens on this whole ordeal.

They're not an energy source though. A magnet simply puts out a field, a static field. You can't extract energy from it without putting energy into it. Why are they useful in generators? You need some way of getting those electrons in the wires to want to move. So you put energy into a magnet, kinetic energy, and this energy is transferred into the electrons. All the magnetic field is is a sort of go-between. You have a spinning generator shaft, and you want it to move electrons. You can't get them moving with a big gear, so you use magnetic fields to do the job instead, like a gear with an immense number of teeth, which can act on the subatomic level. They don't store energy any more than a gear would.



Stumping an MIT professor - maybe it was a professor of psychology, or a theater instructor. 😛
MIT has general education courses too, right?🙂

Originally posted by: Trogdor91
A fellow at work was talking about something similar to this the other day. Not sure if it was the same or not but it also used magnets etc and claimed that he himself built one out of an alternator. If its real thats awesome, and if its not, well nothing will change. I just can't stop thinking that if he can find out how to do this from directions on the internets, why hasn't someone shown that they actually sold electricity back to the electric company? Surely someone has tried this on a grander scale. My personal opinion, if it was legit, something major would have already happened with it already.

If it was true, we'd either have a military-industrial organization, Magnelec, with two purposes: Distribute electricity, and fund an army to enforce its strict patent rules so that no one could duplicate its technology in their garage.
Or, every home would have a Mr. Magnet generator in the basement, powering every little gadget you could ever buy, built using salvaged hard drive magnets and old alternators.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Or, every home would have a Mr. Magnet generator in the basement, powering every little gadget you could ever buy, built using salvaged hard drive magnets and old alternators.

Hmmmmm, so you're saying that this radical new approach to bulk energy supply would be alternator sized. 😛 😉

 

[PowerEngineer]

I wouldn't invest money in it quite yet... 😉

I watched a couple of the videos, and I have to admit that I'm not sure what he's set up there. One thing he definitely needs to do is put a watt meter on the induction motor; induction motors can be highly reactive loads -- especially at low load levels. Amps will not be proportional to real power.

I can't see any way that the "back flux" he's generating through those coils can be channeled down the shaft in a way that actually affects the induction motor.

My guess is that his coil manipulations are just changing the load he's placing on the induction motor. Somehow closing the coils reduces the motor load, and induction motors naturally speed up some when the load is reduced.

He did mention something (during part 3) that the Ontario Hydro engineers had an explanation for what he was seeing, but he obviously wasn't convinced. I'll bet on the engineers from Ontario Hydro myself...

 

[darthsidious]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: destrekor
I've always thought magnetic fields will eventually be a great source of energy, just getting over the magnetic friction would be the biggest hurdle. Magnetic fields contain a lot of potential energy, especially that friction generated by them...
but magnets also have the innate ability to repel. So, if we can find a way to overcome apparent friction (needed: a constant energy to propel some magnets), and capture the energy available in the magnetic fields... and if one can somehow capture enough energy then it could power itself and leave a little trickle of extra energy, meaning a large enough scale amped up in speed could produce a good amount of energy that is perceived as free.

free energy though? Well, isn't it safe to say magnetic fields are a great source of potential energy, when imagining magnetic friction and other things (I understand the concepts, but don't know the details in these fields.. I'm only working towards a BA after all 😛). I'm not too sure about magnetization and demagnetization.. but can't magnets be re-magnetized? If not... wouldn't this be similar to nuclear then, if the first statement of this paragraph holds true? Lots of potential energy waiting to be captured... but depletes over time. But aren't magnets easy to produce? I'm sure a little payment into such energy creation won't be so bad. Magnets aren't terribly expensive, are they? And if they can help us create energy, like with nuclear materials... than that ain't so bad.

And worst thing to come of this discovery could very well be a way to create a more efficient and viable all-electric car motor.

Here's to hoping this is true. Stumping an MIT professor with such a device just makes it all the better. 🙂 And yes, due to his personal history and struggles.. I'm less likely to call shens on this whole ordeal.

They're not an energy source though. A magnet simply puts out a field, a static field. You can't extract energy from it without putting energy into it. Why are they useful in generators? You need some way of getting those electrons in the wires to want to move. So you put energy into a magnet, kinetic energy, and this energy is transferred into the electrons. All the magnetic field is is a sort of go-between. You have a spinning generator shaft, and you want it to move electrons. You can't get them moving with a big gear, so you use magnetic fields to do the job instead, like a gear with an immense number of teeth, which can act on the subatomic level. They don't store energy any more than a gear would.



Stumping an MIT professor - maybe it was a professor of psychology, or a theater instructor. 😛
MIT has general education courses too, right?🙂

Originally posted by: Trogdor91
A fellow at work was talking about something similar to this the other day. Not sure if it was the same or not but it also used magnets etc and claimed that he himself built one out of an alternator. If its real thats awesome, and if its not, well nothing will change. I just can't stop thinking that if he can find out how to do this from directions on the internets, why hasn't someone shown that they actually sold electricity back to the electric company? Surely someone has tried this on a grander scale. My personal opinion, if it was legit, something major would have already happened with it already.

If it was true, we'd either have a military-industrial organization, Magnelec, with two purposes: Distribute electricity, and fund an army to enforce its strict patent rules so that no one could duplicate its technology in their garage.
Or, every home would have a Mr. Magnet generator in the basement, powering every little gadget you could ever buy, built using salvaged hard drive magnets and old alternators.

I have no idea about this invention, but the MIT prof is legit. Marcus Zahn is a prof in the MIT EE department, who specializes in Electromagnetics. He's been at MIT for a while now, and I think is considered one of the top experts in that area.

 

[Analog]

updated.

 

[Fenixgoon]

coolness 🙂

best of luck to the guy. it's a good thing he hasn't gone around shouting "perpetual motion."

 

[kinev]

Allow me to retort....

 

[destrekor]

So basically the MIT professor has essentially said "don't talk this up like an idiot and make a fool of out yourself, as now you'll make a fool out of me too! get more tests done before you promote it anymore!"

I hope this goes somewhere for the guy. The fact that the professor basically has NO clue WTF is happening, he can't really add or detract from the situation.
He officially stumped an MIT (electromagnetism-specialty) professor. Holy shit.

 

[SampSon]

For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

because, like religion, everyone wants to stand firmly with the belief that science can't be proved wrong* by science. :laugh:

* not necessarily 'wrong', but proved to have a misunderstood grasp on science and must be updated in time as we learn more.

 

[Agentbolt]

Newtonian physics are as a valid now as they were 400 years ago. This is NOT a perpetual motion machine, because such a thing is impossible.

Having said that, give this guy serious props. He clearly doesn't understand 100% what his own machine does, and instead of making a bunch of outrageous claims about what this thing can do, he's actively trying to be as mellow and humble about it as possible. This could be a breakthrough in engine efficiency even if it's doesn't violate any physical laws, and he could become very very rich and famous. I'm rooting for him.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

because, like religion, everyone wants to stand firmly with the belief that science can't be proved wrong* by science. :laugh:

* not necessarily 'wrong', but proved to have a misunderstood grasp on science and must be updated in time as we learn more.

There are some basic laws in physics that have withstood all attempts to break them so far, simple or exotic. It seems far fetched that some kind of simple electric generator is able to defeat the conservation of energy. You can't blame people for being skeptical when lately there have been so many scammers and/or people with poor grasp of science claiming they have found a source of free energy.

 

[SampSon]

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

because, like religion, everyone wants to stand firmly with the belief that science can't be proved wrong* by science. :laugh:

* not necessarily 'wrong', but proved to have a misunderstood grasp on science and must be updated in time as we learn more.

There are some basic laws in physics that have withstood all attempts to break them so far, simple or exotic. It seems far fetched that some kind of simple electric generator is able to defeat the conservation of energy. You can't blame people for being skeptical when lately there have been so many scammers and/or people with poor grasp of science claiming they have found a source of free energy.

I'm neither a skeptic or a "believer", I just find it far fetched some of the best scientific minds cannot figure out this simple machine.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

because, like religion, everyone wants to stand firmly with the belief that science can't be proved wrong* by science. :laugh:

* not necessarily 'wrong', but proved to have a misunderstood grasp on science and must be updated in time as we learn more.

There are some basic laws in physics that have withstood all attempts to break them so far, simple or exotic. It seems far fetched that some kind of simple electric generator is able to defeat the conservation of energy. You can't blame people for being skeptical when lately there have been so many scammers and/or people with poor grasp of science claiming they have found a source of free energy.

yup, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

 

[Pacfanweb]

So are they going to use this motor to power their tank?

 

[silverpig]

I haven't watched much of the videos yet, but I think it might just be a change in something analogous to changing the moment of inertia of a spinning object. You can make it go faster or slower depending on how the rotating mass is distributed.

 

[Eeezee]

I've already looked into this one, and it is definitely not a perpetual motion machine. He has transferred energy from one form (a magnetic field) into another. You need energy to create the magnetic field (ferromagnets are naturally not magnetic until you apply a magnetic field to them, upon which they gain "permanent magnetizaiton" which is a bit of a misleading term, since they can lose that magnetization if sufficient energy is lost - a magnetized steel bar, for example, is a very strong magnet and it takes a good deal of energy to both give it permanent magnetization and to take it away)

In other words, this perpetual motion machine will stop when the magnet becomes demagnetized. Once that happens, you need to take the ferromagnet (his steel bar) and put it in a strong uniform magnetic field in order to (it takes significant energy to produce a strong magnetic field). This process of putting energy into a ferromagnet and then extracting it via his machine is intrinsically inefficient (the magnetization process alone causes a huge loss of efficiency).

This is no different than putting a ball at the top of a huge incline ramp and watching it roll for awhile. You might say "Look, it's perpetual motion, it shows no sign of stopping!" Eventually the ball will reach zero potential energy (the bottom of the incline), and due to frictional effects it will eventually stop. Once you transfer the energy, the acceleration stops (and since friction is everywhere and works against us in everything we do, the ball decelerates).

I admire him for trying to pursue his dream, but he lacks the physical understanding of the system he has created to have it do anything. An intermediate-level course in electromagnetism (I recommend Griffiths' E&M) would give him enough reason to see why this is not a perpetual motion machine. It's a neat device he has made, though.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

because, like religion, everyone wants to stand firmly with the belief that science can't be proved wrong* by science. :laugh:

* not necessarily 'wrong', but proved to have a misunderstood grasp on science and must be updated in time as we learn more.

First of all, it's proven, not proved

Second, what are you even talking about? Once upon a time, scientific evidence gave us the plum-pudding model of the atom, Newtonian gravity, and Boltzmann-statistics. By your logic, we would never have to advance past these models. These theories proved to be insufficient in certain cases (Rutherford scattering, relativistic effects, and Pauli exclusion as a few examples). New theories were created (modern nuclear physics, general relativity, quantum mechanics) that better explain what is going on. Quantum mechanics and General Relativity were invented less than a century ago. Quantum mechanics sees bizarre breakthroughs and inventions all the time.

Scientists are consistently looking for situations that BREAK the laws of physics by conducting experiments. For example, I know of two cases when someone claimed to have discovered a magnetic monopole. Anyone who has taken E&M knows that this is impossible via our current understanding of Maxwell's Equations, specifically that the divergence of a magnetic field is zero. On the other hand, the existence of a magnetic monopole perfectly explains why electric charge is quantized. The first experiment turned out to be completely falsified and no one was unable to reproduce the second experiment (not even the discoverers). Without reproducibility, a discovery means nothing.

I can claim to see a T-Rex walking around outside of my window, but my claim won't change paleontology or biology unless several people have seen it (and photographs don't count - there needs to be serious proof for such a huge claim).

The whole point of conducting scientific research is to enhance the models we have now. A successful theory has to encompass all of the facets of other the theories that it is trying to usurp (ie general relativity had to adequately explain the motions of the planets as accurately as Newton's gravity).

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: SampSon
For all the people we have in these perpetual motion threads talking classical science, why can't anyone really figure it out?

This is like sitting at a magic show and listening to people offer up their opinions of how the trick worked.

A lot of these demonstrations are nothing more than a magic show. The guy comes into town shows his machine, makes claims, doesn't let anyone touch the thing and leaves. In addition, a lot of people do not want to be associated with the guy or anyone that is trying to claim perpetual motion. Zahn pretty much states both in his rather scathing (for an academic professional) statement,

"I would not want to go to NASA or anywhere else to help promote your invention until basic testing and measurements are done so that the cause of the shaft speed up due to a permanent magnet is understood and that the foolishness is stopped of hinting that your motor violates fundamental laws of physics."

It seems obvious from this that he has not had any real chance to work with the machine hands on and is rather eager to try and distance himself when any amount of sensationalism creeps in.

EDIT: If the guy was really serious, he would distribute information on how to build the machine and let the academic community look into his claims independently. This is how research is done. Researcher will report their results openly in journals, conferences, or other means of dissemination to allow other interested groups to analyze and critique their methods and attempt to reproduce the results themselves.